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Ratiocination

Mission Accomplished


A variation on my Kuhn paper was accepted for publication in Sorites, a "refereed all-English international electronic quarterly of analytical philosophy." It's a B or C-list journal, but still listed by the Philosopher's Index; in this way it's a real philosophy journal. It is furthermore a professional publication, not aimed merely at students or publishing work primarily by students. Thus, come December or so, I will really be a published author in my own field. That's a nice thought. =)

Happy Birthday Wishes...


To Katherine Tabris. =)

Even though she is a bad, bad person:

To be in Scotland...


Alvin Plantinga is delivering the Gifford Lectures these two weeks at the University of St. Andrews. The topics he has chosen to speak on include all the usual suspects as of late, but what appear to be a couple he has not published or presented on:

April 12: Evolution and Design
April 14: Divine Action in the World
April 19: Evolutionary Psychology and Scripture Scholarship: more alike than you think
April 21: Methodological Naturalism and Games Scientists Play
April 26: On Christian Scholarship
April 28: Materialism and Christian Belief
May 3: Naturalism Defeated
May 5: Naturalism versus Science

It'd be neat if these get published as a monograph similar to his Does God Have a Nature? (the Aquinas lectures he delievered back in the early 80s). Details care of ID the future.

In other news, Bill Dembski is coming to Biola's campus to speak on Monday. I look forward to hearing his talk and the Q&A, though it will require me to skip out of Medieval philosophy. The topic is his usual, “The Intelligent Design Revolution,” with the description reading,

Is there a scientifically-founded alternative to Darwinism?  What is the latest progress in the Intelligent Design Movement?  How are secular scientists responding?  As one of the recognized world experts on the Intelligent Design Movement, Dr. Dembski will provide authoritative and stimulating answers to the most complex questions.

I'm skeptical of the overall ID project, but will inevitably relish seeing a brilliant man do his thing. And make no mistake about it--for all the foolery that counts as the ID "movement," Dembski is no fool. That he has two earned doctorates, of course, is persuasive evidence, but more than that, he's a savvy academic, who's displayed great adeptness at convincing others he's right. I've never met the man, but if he's like anyone else who fits that mold, my guess is that he has a bit of the "reality distortion field" that Steve Jobs emanates. That is, I suspect he has a charismatic on-stage presence which proves irresistable under the right conditions, regardless of evidential concerns. Plus, he's got a sense of humor, and that counts for something.

He's thus a star player for ID. The problem with this is that star players can only do so much for any movement. The weakness is particularly acute for a cause which is contingent upon convincing skeptical academics of certain epistemic and ontological claims. Stars can only shine so bright--inevitably, Dembski will overextend himself (beyond his field of expertise) in published and unpublished materials, which will only make his best work look weak. This has already happened, in fact, if anything penned by the guys at the Thumb is close to being correct.

Lecture info:

April 18, 7:30pm, Sutherland Auditorium, Biola University
Map to Biola University: http://www.biola.edu/about/map.cfm

To my readers at Biola: see you there. =)

A Day of Glad Tidings


Some reasons today has been great for me:

1. Philosophically productive and personally enriching breakfast/conversation with Kevin Wong.
2. Kuhn/realism paper accepted to the Northwest Student Philosophy Conference. Item number two on a growing CV. Next up: get published.
3. Good news for Katherine; but those are hers to share.
4. Rocking Aquinas class session, with some solid textual and analytical work accomplished.
5. Aquinas term paper extension granted. This gives me half a weekend (not just tomorrow morning) to craft a piece of philosophy I can be proud of.
6. Clarity of thought and peace of mind after a good night's sleep.
7. I just might have a place to live lined up for the summer and the coming academic year.

Zippo


The great thing about Zippo lighters is that when they go bad, Zippo will repair them for free. =)

Foreknowledge and Alternate Possibilities


I’ve recently been thinking about and researching modal formulations of various arguments for incompatibility (of free will/determinism and foreknowledge/alternate possibilities). Here’s a reflection of some of my recent reflections on the topic.

This post is an examination of what I shall call the Foreknowledge Compatibility Thesis (FCP)—that foreknowledge and alternate possibilities are broadly copossible. I shall introduce a logical machinery using a mixture of accidental and logical necessity, and us it to construct an argument against FCP. My aim here shall be to show that affirmation of FCP requires the rejection of one or more quite plausible theses, not merely a distinction between types of necessity, as thinkers such as St. Anselm might suggest.

Let L denote logical necessity, such that Lp is to be read as “p and it is logically necessary that p.” Let Θ denote the accidental necessity of the past relative to some time t, such that Θt1p is to be read as “p and it is accidentally necessary at t1 that p.”

Logical necessity is a familiar concept, and it needs no introduction (let “2+2 = 4” and “no proposition is both true and false” stand as our paradigmatic logically necessary propositions); accidental necessity will require some exposition, however. [For a more complete account of accidental necessity, see Alfred Freddoso, “Accidental Necessity and Logical Determinism,” Journal of Philosophy, 80 (1983): 257-278.] The past is fixed, it seems, in ways that the future is not. Its fixity is not as strong as that of logical necessity, however—while a logically necessary proposition is necessary for any time t in all possible worlds, facts about the facts acquire their necessity or fixity over time. That is, a fact is not obviously fixed in this sense until it has passed into the past. Once some fact has done so, however, it seems beyond the power of any human to change. This fixity has become known as accidental necessity—“accidental” because it is a weaker sense of necessity in that an accidentally necessary proposition becomes so and “necessity” because it is a modal concept.

A common modal fallacy involves the application of a necessary consequence to a consequent. Consider the following argument:

F1. L (If God knows that p, then P)
F2. God knows that p
F3. Lp

This is obviously an invalid maneuver—a much stronger premise than F2 is necessary to entail F3—namely that:

F2`. L (God knows that p)

For one discussion of the fallacy as it relates to FCP, see Martin Davies, “Boethius and Others on Divine Foreknowledge,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64 (1983): 313-29, especially 314-316. It seems here that F2` is obviously false. It is not the case that God knows that p in all logically possible worlds (the claim being made). Instead, God knows the claim only in those worlds in which p obtains—and his knowledge is fixed in those worlds with a different sort of necessity. A tension, then, has here been highlighted—between an invalid argument form, and a patently false premise.

I propose that this tension can be avoided with the use of a modal principle I shall call M, governing the use of mixed modalities. When speaking in terms of broadly logical necessity, it is a theorem of K (the distribution axiom) that: Lp & L(p ⊃ q) ⊃ Lq. To paraphrase the oft-quoted words of Jonathan Edwards, that which is required by a necessity is itself necessary. Logical necessity “transfers over” entailment to the consequent; indeed, that logical necessity is closed under entailment is not a controversial thesis.

I suggest that under certain conditions, a similar move is valid when mixing kinds of necessity. It seems rationally permissible to mix two modalities in an inference if and only if the conclusion uses only the weaker of the two. We can formulate one implication of this intuitively plausible notion as:

M: ∀p, ∀q, Θp & L(p ⊃ q) ⊃ Θq.

That is, for any propositions p and q, if it is accidentally necessary that p and it is logically necessary that p entails q, it is accidentally necessary that q. I note that this principle, while similar to van Inwagen’s Beta principle [Peter van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will, (New York/Oxford: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1983): 90ff.] is immune to its notorious Agglomeration counterexamples [eg, David Johnson and Thomas J. McKay, “A Reconsideration of an Argument against Compatibilism,” Philosophical Topics 24 (1996).] precisely because it involves more than one modality, unlike Beta, which governs only one (“N”). I here follow the lead of Finch and Warfield in their reformulation of Beta to use mixed modality as a defense against Agglomeration. [See Alicia Finch and Ted A. Warfield, “The Mind Argument and Libertarianism,” Mind 107 (1998): 521.]

Like van Inwagen with his Beta, I do not know how to justify M with any degree of certainty, but it seems intuitively plausible to me upon rational reflection. Examples of M in action seem apparent and uncomplicated as well. Consider Rick, a bachelor. That Rick was a Bachelor last year is a fact about the past, accidentally necessary, and thus beyond anyone’s power to change. That Rick’s past Bachelorhood entails that Rick was unmarried is a logically necessary truth. In light of these considerations, does not it seem intuitively valid to infer that Rick’s being unmarried in the past is accidentally necessary—a fact which could have been otherwise, but is now beyond anyone’s control? I finally offer this consideration in favor of M: it has no readily apparent counter-examples. Thus, I find it reasonable to rely upon M in an argument.

Letting Kg(t1)(p) stand for “God knows at t1 that p,” and “p” for any future indexed proposition about an event (of the form “event e will occur at t2), I shall now present a simple argument against FCP. It goes as follows:

P1. L(Kg(t0)(p) ⊃ p)
P2. Θt1(Kg(t1)(p))
C. ∴Θt1p

The argument can be generalized to show that for any future event e, it is accidentally necessary that e. That is, p is merely a dummy proposition for which we can substitute nearly anything. I take it as obvious, furthermore, that accidental necessity about the future precludes alternate possibilities. If it is accidentally necessary that I lift my hand at t2, it is not within my power to not lift my hand at t2.

If principle M is valid, C follows deductively from P1 and P2. Let us examine the truth of each premise in turn.

That P1 is a logical truth does not seem controversial. Since God is typically taken by serious theists as being essentially omniscient, he is such that, in all logically possible worlds, for any proposition p, he believes p if and only if p. P1 merely instances this definition of omniscience with a time-indexed epistemic predicate and a straightforward and necessary logical entailment. This is not a complicated or controversial supposition, I think. I shall not discuss here the possibility that no time-indexed predicates apply to God (a Boethian means of sidestepping this sort of argument).

It seems, too, that P2 is not controversial for one inclined to think of the past as fixed and foreknowledge as genuinely obtaining before, or, temporally prior to some event. Surely that some God has some feature at t0 (believing that p) is a fact of the past, too, at t1.

It seems, then, that a defender of FCP is in a slightly less comfortable position than Anselm believes her to be. Merely distinguishing between types of necessity is not sufficient for affirming FCP; instead, one or more premise of the above argument or principle M must be rejected. Let us now consider five ways in which this may be done, and the costs associated with each maneuver. There are more, of course, but these are perhaps the most obvious or plausible resources available to the proponent of FCP.

Defense #1: Deny M. Since I have already considered the intuitive force behind M above, I need only note here that this comes at a price. To deny M without a counter-example would be ad-hoc at best—denying its validity thus seems irresponsible, at least without a clear presentation of a counter-example. I note that while counter-examples have emerged against Beta and similar principles of “transfer,” I know of none which have any force against the mixed modality M governs. [For presentation and analysis of counterexamples to Beta, see Johnson and McKay (cited above), David Widerker, “On an Argument for Incompatiblism,” Analysis 47 (1987): p.37-41, Alex Blum, “N,” Analysis Vol. 60, No. 3 (2000): 284-6, Erik Carlson, “Incompatiblism and the Transfer of Power Necessity,” Nous Vol. 34, No. 2 (2000): 277-90, and Michael Slote, “Selective Necessity and the Free Will Problem,” Journal of Philosophy 79 (1982).]

Defense #2: Deny P1. P1 could be denied in at least two ways. First, divine foreknowledge entirely could be abandoned—but this is hardly a tenable move for a theist like Anselm to commit to. Second, P1 could be weakened, such that it is no longer seen as a logically necessary truth—under this view, God is omniscient, but only contingently so. Again, I do not think this will do for one in Anselm’s shoes. If God were only contingently omniscient, a being greater than God could be conceived of—one who was necessarily omniscient. This is a straightforward reductio of the position—that a being could be conceived of as being greater than the being than which none greater can be conceived of!

Defense #3: Deny P2. This maneuver requires a denial of the fixity of the past; this could be done in two ways. First, one could claim real power over the actual past—to change what actually happened in a temporally prior state of affairs—but this is a large bullet to bite, with a potential for high lead content. Is it really conceivable that humans (or anyone, for that matter) can change the past in this strong sense? Not to this author, at least. Second, an Ockhamist distinction could be made between hard and soft facts of the past. This is, not surprisingly, the move endorsed by William of Ockham. [See Alvin Plantinga. “On Ockham's Way Out,” Faith and Philosophy Vol. 3 No. 3 (1986): 235-69.] Detailing the virtues and vices of this view is beyond the scope of this post, but I note that claiming even counter-factual power over the past, as it were, is a project that is prima facie far more anti-intuitive than asserting that no such power exists. The Ockhamist has her work set out for her regardless.

Defense #4: The application of M to P1 and P2. Here’s how one argument for this move might go—P1 and P2 are time-indexed, as is the conclusion. And yet, the intuitively plausible formulation of M given in this post doesn’t tell us how to deal with such indexicals. I confess in response that this may be a weakness of the argument. And yet, I see no reason why M could not be reformulated to accommodate the criticism, while retaining much of its intuitive force. Given space limitations, I shall not conduct that project here, but it certainly seems a viable option.

Defense #5: Deny the relevance of conclusion C. If the above argument were generalized (and it can be) to all events, it could straightforwardly demonstrate that foreknowledge and alternate possibilities are incompatible. That is, the accidental necessity described in C is such that it precludes action otherwise. For one interested in such alternate possibilities (eg, free will libertarians), this seems troubling. But suppose that one is persuaded by Frankfurtian counter-examples that alternate possibilities are not required for moral responsibility—in this way, foreknowledge can be said to “fix” the future, but still in an innocuous way, without any threat to agency. One excellent discussion of the so-called Frankfurt counterexamples and their relation to alternate possibilities as a condition of moral responsibility is in [John Martin Fischer, The Metaphysics of Free Will (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994): 131ff.] This move is, I suggest, a plausible one—but I must point out that it does not do anything to my argument. That is, it denies neither the premises, the logical form, or the conclusion, and hence has no force against the more limited project I have embarked upon.

It may seem on its face easy to reconcile alternate possibilities with divine foreknowledge with the simple distinction between types of necessity. I have shown that this is not the case—at the very least, the defender of the FCP has bullets to bite.

Philosophical Pedagogy (Part II)


A few other pedagogical tactics I’ve encountered in and out of the philosophy department at Biola include:

No Attendance Requirement. Physical science Lecturer Mark Pichaj (I took two semesters with him) seemed to make it a point to never require attendance of his students. He once told me that only a bad teacher would mandate this—if the lectures were really worth listening to, would not the students choose to do so, after all? And if they didn’t, their grade would reflect their effort accordingly. While the jury’s still out for me on the stronger claim Pichaj endorsed, I generally think that attendance requirements should be as lax as possible. Choosing to constantly skip class is, of course, an unwise move, given the huge investment most students or their parents have made. But the choice here should be the student’s, I think, and I little or no reason why the professor ought to take it upon herself to weigh in on that choice with direct grade-incentives.

The Class Presentation. Mostly positive. It’s like writing a paper without the writing. It takes work (mostly research) to not be a fool onstage, and having a presentation as part of a class grade will motivate most but not all students to do that valuable work. The highly verbal nature of the assignment will disadvantage some students, though, and that’s unfortunate. I’ve seen some students get away with what amounts to rubbish just because they have a bit of verbal skill or an outgoing personality. Conversely, I’ve seen some solid philosophical work fall flat merely because of its lackluster presentation. That’s too bad, which is why my feelings about presentations tend to be mixed.

The Group Presentation. Mixed results. The one condition which has made this sort of presentation sound has been an element of choice. When I’ve been mandated to present with students x, y, and z (instead of students a, b, and c of my own choice), my enthusiasm for the project has always dropped, as has the overall quality of output. Maybe it’s my libertarian/egalitarian streak here, but I hate the thought of my grade (or pride) being negatively moved due to the actions of another student, which tend to be out of my control.

Philosopher's Carnival Vol. 12


Check out the Philosopher’s Carnival Vol. 12 for a sample of what’s going on in the world of philosophical blogging.

Philosophical Pedagogy (Part I)


I aspire to be an academic philosopher. This entails becoming proficient in the teaching of philosophy, I think (though not all professional philosophers would agree, if their actions reveal anything about their beliefs). Three pedagogical tactics I’ve encountered here at Biola have proven especially helpful in my own progress, and I plan to implement them myself should I ever teach philosophy.

The One Minute Paper. This is Gregg Ten Elshof’s way of simultaneously taking attendance, inspiring philosophical reflection, and keeping his finger on the pulse of his students. It works towards all three ends, I think. The method is simple: we end each class session with a 3 minute period or so, during which every student writes down whatever is on their mind, in light of the material just presented or discussed. It could be a question, an argument, a reminder to Gregg to check his email, a point of disagreement, or anything, really. And it works. After reading the stack of one minute papers, sometimes Ten Elshof will shoot off an email letting me know where I might find an answer to my question, a quick note of affirmation (“this is the right direction to be probing”), or whatnot. If a trend emerges (eg, 5+ students all had a confusion about argument X), he’ll have an opportunity to correct for the error in the next session, focusing discussion to clear up confusion or disambiguate a concept on the table. I don’t know where this one came from, but it seems a keeper.

The Interview. Instead of grading papers and turning them back with comments, David Ciocchi requires each student turning in a major paper to meet with him for twenty minutes or so of office hours. In this time, Ciocchi reads (out loud) the student’s paper, providing an ongoing commentary and dialogue. At the end of the session, he suggests changes, and, if necessary, a deadline to make them by. This accomplishes a couple purposes. First, it keeps Ciocchi on-time. That is, Ciocchi is never behind in grading, since he doesn’t have a huge stack of papers to grade. Instead, he grades at a steady pace (5-10 interviews a day or so). Additionally, the comments he’s able to provide are far more helpful than any selection of terse margin notes. Finally, it provides a sense of connection between professor and student, giving him a chance to know us a little, and visa versa. All of these are conducive to learning.

Mandatory Formal Argument. This one might be a little more controversial, but, after a lot of reflection, I’m convinced it has value. Ciocchi, in several middle-division classes he teaches (300 level) requires his students each week to provide an argument touching on something in the reading. Usually, a stipulation is included that this argument must have labeled premises (P1, P2…) and conclusions (C1, C2…). This is initially burdensome—it’s much easier to pump out a few paragraphs of argumentative prose, after all. But it trains the mind in really healthy ways, I think. Watching the same group of students through two semesters of this (and I include myself in this set) has been instructive. We’ve become more pointed in our ability to critique a philosophical argument, asking what its premises are, if they are true, and if the conclusions claimed follow validly from them. Putting arguments formally habituates students into this sound practice. Now, a little informal argument or alternative forms of justification or discourse are healthy parts of a philosophical diet—and Ciocchi is aware of this, providing amble room in the syllabus for this kind of variation. Nonetheless, it’s a great way to guide students along in their own critical thinking skills. The Mandatory Formal Argument is a move which analytic departments will find special affinity towards, I note—but I see no reason one could not do good phenomenology, for example, in this context or using this tool.

The Book Summary. Ciocchi is fond of this, and I must say I am too. Instead of delivering a survey lecture, Ciocchi will occasionally dedicate an entire session to a book summary. He will give us the citation for an important book in the field that he wishes he could have made assigned reading but couldn’t due to workload limitations, and then proceed to outline the main arguments and contributions of the book. This saves students the trouble of buying yet another overpriced philosophy volume from the book store, of attempting to read it in its entirety, or the sometimes even more tedious prospect of skimming for nuggets. Ciocchi takes it upon himself to find the nuggets for us and report them plainly. This isn’t always appropriate (no student should merely read a summary of Plato’s Phaedo for example), but for extraneous material, it strikes a perfect balance between depth and breadth, without adding to the course load too much.

Feedback from Hunt


I’m taking a class on Plato with David Hunt (from Whittier College). We got our first papers back from grading today, and the results were expected. I pulled a high A, but only because of my proficient use of formal machinery, attention to technical detail, and clarity of exposition. These are areas in which any Biola philosophy student ought to excel. My central thesis was nonetheless labeled “stillborn” and deeply problematic, primarily because it did not demonstrate any substantive interaction with the Platonic texts most relevant to my project.

This has happened before, and it may happen again. Hunt, in his evaluation of a class presentation I gave earlier in the semester, noted:

I'm going to give you an A for the presentation, in virtue of your proficient use of the tools of analysis and your imaginative effort at the end to show that Plato was up to something else... Analytic philosophy is a powerful tool, but remember that 'if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' Beware of forcing the text into something that is easily processed with the tools available to you. (Easier said than done, I know! I have some temptation to do this as well, but it's a temptation that needs to be resisted, or at least indulged only after one has lived with the text for a long time on its own terms.)

Given space restrictions and their correlative need for prioritization, I tend to choose analysis over history. That is, I’m more inclined to construct a formal argument structure or conceptual apparatus and see where it goes, rather than get down and dirty with any given text and figure out what the author was really up to. I respect the place of the latter project in the greater philosophical community—I’m just rather bad at it. Or at least worse at it than I am at anything else.

I guess ahistorical philosophy is more fun for me.

But that must change for at least one 12-page paper, due in May. Why? Because it’s 50% of my course grade in Platonism, and Hunt won’t tolerate “mere analysis” next time ‘round. =)

The State of Ancient Philosophy


From what I’ve seen of it, Brian Leiter’s The Future for Philosophy (OUP, 2004) is an interesting volume.

Analytic metaphysics is mentioned in the introduction, but not given its own chapter—this is unfortunate. Philosophy of religion is ignored entirely—this is ridiculous. The field remains viewed as a ghetto of sorts by thinkers like Leiter, but too many philosophers list it as a specialty to ignore in a book as important (pretentious?) as the one at hand, especially given it's purported goal to "bring together leading figures from most major branches of the discipline to offer answers." Metaphysics proper and philosophy of religion are most definitely "major branches" of the discipline--they just don't fit so neatly into Leiter's philosophical views and agenda, I'd guess.

Julia Annas' contribution is well worth a read. She capably highlights recent trends in ancient philosophy, especially the movement back into philosophy departments. Studying the ancients is no longer the exclusive work of classicists. Early analytic thought was radically ahistorical and hostile to the classics (eg: Quine’s notorious refusal to teach any history of philosophy), but this generalization is no longer true. Quite the opposite, in fact.

There was a time (eg: Gregory Vlasdos’ first Third Man article) when Plato and Aristotle were sources to be mined for quality arguments. These arguments were ripped out of their literary and historical context and grilled for validity of form and true premises. This was fun while it lasted, Annas notes, but doomed to a more mature fate. Plato and Aristotle, especially, are increasingly seen as subtle and nuanced contributors to the philosophical project, worthy of being taken on their own terms. This means reading Plato’s works as dialogues, for example.

All of this seems really quite healthy to me, and a sign of the maturation of the analytic project. That mainstream analytic ancient philosophy is taking Plato seriously on his own terms, for example, shows receptivity to a more holistic view of philosophy, I think.

Plato’s choice of dialogue as a writing medium is uniquely experiential. Unlike a lecture or a plainer philosophical essay, a dialogue draws its reader in through dramatic elements, characters, plot (though often minimal), and movement. Sayre makes this point quite well, so I shall quote him at length (Kenneth Sayre, Plato’s Literary Garden: How to Read a Platonic Dialogue (Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 28.):

There are various ways of describing this remarkable capacity of Plato’s dialogues to reward one’s reading… On the most superficial level, the dialogue will contain a series of less than clever opinions… On a more substantial level, the typical dialogue will begin the engage the reader’s own serious thoughts about the matter under discussion, perhaps leading him or her to think up alternative responses to the mater dialectician’s questioning. Thus an experienced reader of the first part of the Parmenides, for example, might be stimulated to ‘come to Plato’s assistance’ with more sophisticated responses to Parmenides’ arguments against the Forms… Then there is the level on which a person stands to get an inkling of what Plato is getting at in the dialogue and begins to see ramifications not articulated by individual characters…

This is admittedly a “bigger” view of philosophy than mere conceptual analysis. It looks for contributions to the human condition as a whole, and not merely arguments. Uniting these lessons from the ancient with more contemporary methods is a great idea. Plato and Aristotle didn’t have the sense/reference distinction, possible worlds semantics, a posterior necessity, a completed logic of any sort, or the engine of symbolic logic and its related formal tools. We do.

Combining these conceptual resources with broader insights from the ancient has got to be one of the most exciting, philosophically sound, and intellectually fruitful moves to be made in recent years.

Philosophy Outside the Bubble


Hanging out with philosophy majors from other schools at Pacific University’s undergraduate philosophy conference provided me an interesting opportunity to get a taste of how philosophy is done outside of my own bubble. A couple trends I observed may be worth noting.

A deep unsatisfaction with analytic philosophy. Close to a dozen students (from as many schools) I spoke with bemoaned the heavily analytic focus of their respective departments. They noted that the analytic tradition was dry and out of touch with the sense of wonder and excitement that drew them to philosophy in the first place. Few were as interested in Russell, Quine, Kripke, and Putnam as they were in Heidegger, Derrida, or Levinas. I wonder if this signals any up-and-coming trends in Anglo-American philosophy away from straight analytic work. Analytic methodology remains dominant in most grad schools, of course, but in colleges where undergraduate demand shapes the kind of courses offered, departments may be forced to reevaluate the still-common dismissal of "the Continent."

A collegial spirit. The whole affair was quite friendly. Sharking for blood remained minimal, in contrast to many professional conferences or those with serious graduate students.

A fascination with rigorous history of philosophy. I listened to five Plato papers, and in these sessions, everyone seemed to care a great deal about what Plato really was up to. That is, they weren’t just there for a good argument or to extract a good argument from the text. Instead, there was a strong interest in actually digging into the work (in its original language), with the requisite historical context. “Taking on the ancients on their own terms” was a refreshing and healthy theme I observed throughout these discussions.

Open minds. Most students at the conference had “caught the philosophy bug,” in a really strong and interesting way. They just wanted to know. No one bristled at my suggestion(s) that theism could offer resources in answering certain problems; I mentioned in one session that I was a Christian, and this was met with a genuine, friendly curiosity. New ideas were countered with intelligent, probing questions, not shallow defeators.

Anti-realism. This is perhaps in tension with the above two points, but I observed the phenomena on too many occasions to disregard. Many students seemed to not care about the fact of the matter, with regard (especially) to the metaphysics of any given puzzle. Several times it was suggested to me that the “answer” might be relative to an observer or not really there at all. This stands in stark contrast to the commitments to epistemic and metaphysical realism I’m used to at Biola.

Oh, and I met my first (of many to come?) real-life Quinian. She bit all the bullets Quinians are supposed to bite, and seemed, in fact, to relish the leaden taste.

Stanley Fish


In Katherine’s application for Oxford next semester, she was asked to write an essay on a quotation from literary critic Stanley Fish: “To put the matter baldly, a person of religious conviction should not want to enter the marketplace of ideas, but to shut it down, at least insofar as it presumes to determine matters that he believes have been determined by God and faith.”

Fish claims to have put the matter baldly—I say that he has merely put it badly. The thinker with religious commitments is no different in an important sense than a thinker with any commitments—that is, a thinker simpliciter.

Imagine the academic project as a crossword puzzle. Some words are penciled in—the beliefs they represent are merely tentative and uncertain. Others are inked in pen—their corresponding ideas are less negotiable. Some religious convictions belong in the former camp, others in the latter. The move from this picture to the notion that “a person of religious conviction should… want… to shut it down…” is palpably ridiculous. Indeed, if wanting to shut down the marketplace of ideas is bad (and that it is bad is “inked in,” so to speak)—Fish himself may have some notions of his own to account for.

I have only a vague idea of the context and background driving Fish’s thought—but it smells to me of the sort of rotten philosophy that emanates from English departments. I don’t say it’s rotten because it contains what I take to be false propositions. Rather, it is a dead-end enterprise, given the inputs. Garbage-in, garbage out. Far too many literary theorists take it upon themselves to do philosophy with all the wrong methods and in all the wrong ways. They fail to recognize that philosophers have studied the problems before them today for literally thousands of years—and have some answers (if only negative ones!). They furthermore fail to use the host of distinctions and tools available to contemporary thinkers interested in abstract problems. This is as irresponsible and foolish as a creation scientist attempting to “disprove evolution” from the armchair. The fact remains: doing serious ratiocination takes a little more work than that, guys.

Sorry.

The Philosopher's Imprint


I must say that I'm impressed. The Philosopher's Imprint, a relatively new, free, refereed electronic journal, edited by philosophy faculty at the University of Michigan, has considered and rejected a piece I wrote for them. The complete review process took less than a month. That's quality service; if only all professional philosophy journals had a similar turn-around time.

Spring Break would have been nice...


Last month, I went to two out of state national debate tournaments--this meant that I logged close to zero work hours. I have a rent bill to pay come May 1st... so I spent spring break making up for lost hours. Then I went to a philosophy conference. So here I am, at the first day after spring break's end, and I am more behind in school work than I've been all year.

I'm sending the following letter to the President and Provost of Pacific University. =)

"I am writing to draw your attention to an event that happened on your campus last weekend—the 9th annual Pacific University Undergraduate Philosophy Conference. I was privileged to attend and present a paper along with undergraduates from around the country. It was a pleasure to take part in this fine conference—I enjoyed presenting my paper, meeting many bright undergraduates, and “talking shop” with fellow philosophy buffs.

This was all made possible by the hard work of Professors David Boersema and David DeMoss from your philosophy department. They tirelessly reviewed submitted papers, put together a program, secured a facility and comment panel for every paper session, coordinated food for participants, and brought us a top-notch keynote speaker from Harvard. Members of the philosophy department even took it upon themselves to drive participants to and from their hotels.

As an aspiring academic philosopher, my ability to advance in the ranks depends a great deal upon the service and investment of those already in the profession. It is only due to the help of fine philosophers such as those at Pacific University that I have advanced thus far. For many at the conference, the papers we presented were the very first item on our young CV’s. You must imagine what an exciting prospect this is for undergraduates just beginning their academic careers.

I commend Professors Boersema and DeMoss for giving back to young members of the discipline in the way they have. Pacific University, as a smaller school, undoubtedly has limited resources. From what Dr. Boersema said, the teaching load is demanding as well. Given these two factors, that the philosophy department at Pacific held an affordable conference exclusively for undergraduates is even more impressive and praiseworthy.

Your school is privileged to count such giving, friendly, and talented members of the philosophical community as faculty."

What I wrote is true, and I would reccomend the conference to any undergraduate interested in pursuing philosophy in a broader context (ie, with those from other colleges and universities).